Page 11 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

If anyone should be losing her shit a little, it was Ramona.

And she was.

Quietly, while she tried to think of a four-letter word for anunexpected blessing, her heart rate increasing the longer she listened to Olive stomp around upstairs.

“Good morning!” April trilled as she came in through the back door, just like she did most mornings. She lived on the next street over, bought her own house and everything like a real adult after college, a tiny sage-green bungalow with two feline roommates and walls covered in all manner of strange and beautiful art. Her parents still lived in the same house April had grown up in on the other side of town, still practiced medicine at Evans Family Medicine, but April, for all her love of Clover Lake, needed her own space.

She’d always needed more space than the Evanses knew how to give or create.

Her parents were one reason April loved astrology so vehemently—because Jacqueline and Preston Evans didnot. They were people of science, doctors who moved their practice from San Francisco to Clover Lake for a quieter life for their only daughter. As April grew up, it became wildly clear that she was never going to be contained by their standards, their logic, their stoic and practical approach to life.

“Oh, thank god,” April said, beelining for the glass carafe that held Steven’s precious pour-over. He always made enough for both April and Ramona before he left for work during the regular school year, and for the past few years, he also taught summer school, which had just started up this week. April drained the last of the coffee into a mug with David Rose’s face on it, along with the admonition to eat glass. April held the mug close, steam curling into her face, and inhaled deeply. “Bless.”

Ramona laughed. “Just drink it already.”

“I’m enjoying this masterpiece.”

Ramona shook her head. She loved her dad’s coffee, but she also had had to make peace with the burnt flavor of the diner’s brew.During a double shift, one couldn’t be picky about their caffeine intake.

April cleared her throat after a sip. “Speaking of masterpieces—”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well, I was.”

Ramona clicked out of her crossword. “Here we go.”

“We need to get you on that movie set.”

Ramona sighed, opened her mouth to protest, but then Olive bounded into the room, her long brown hair flying behind her in two pigtails, her face covered in white makeup with each of her eyes smudged and streaked with red and blue paint, respectively, lips red and smeared. She wore a red-and-white baseball tee that readDaddy’s Lil Monsteracross the chest.

Ramona blinked at her. “What is happening right now?”

“Harley Quinn,” April said, popping a grape in her mouth from the bowl on the counter. “Badass.”

“Today’s theme is superhero day,” Olive said. “Marley is Puddin’. We’re meeting people at the Pancake Corner in Concord.”

“Puddin’?” Ramona asked.

“Harley’s pet name for Joker,” April said.

Ramona sighed. “I’m officially old.”

“We knew that, puddin’,” April said.

Ramona flipped her off but laughed.

“What’s this about the movie set?” Olive asked as she took a sip of Ramona’s coffee.

“Nothing,” Ramona said.

“Everything,” April said, then proceeded to explain about Noelle Yang and Ramona’s dashed dreams. Olive narrowed her eyes as April waxed on, gaze flitting to her sister over and over.

Ramona’s chest tightened. Everything April was saying was essentially true—shedidhave dashed dreams and shehaddeferred her career plans, all of which Olive knew about—but she neverwanted Olive to feel as though she was second place or a backup plan or, even worse, had ruined Ramona’s life.

OlivewasRamona’s life. The best part about it.

“Okay, she gets it,” Ramona said, cutting April off before her best friend’s excitement let something slip about Dylan Monroe. Not that Dylan mattered all that much—she was a blip in Ramona’s past, a firework in the sky lasting only seconds—but Ramona was already struggling against this tiny flicker of hope under her ribs ever since she’d learned about the movie and Noelle Yang coming to Clover Lake. And with Dylan Monroe soon to be strolling through town as well, she wasn’t quite sure how to feel about any of it.